Parking Charge Notices

Are PCNs valid and must I pay a parking charge ticket. I have had new knees and need to have a wide space to get my door open for exiting and entering my car. My tyres were just outside the lines and I have received a parking charge. Do I need to pay it?

Are PCNs valid and must I pay a parking charge ticket. I have had new knees and need to have a wide space to get my door open for exiting and entering my car. My tyres were just outside the lines and I have received a parking charge. Do I need to pay it?

depend what PCN stands for ? if its a penalty charge notice issued by the council or their agents then yes, but you may get a dispensation if you explain ? If its a Parking charge notice issued by a private company on behalf of another private company tesco etc then no, for the time being at least, you can safely ignore these and any threatening letters that arrive

really pleased i found this post, i got a parking charge notice and wrote to them telling them i only drove in, realised that i couldn't park there and drove out and they still want money.....i didn't actually say it was me....they still want my money......
thank you, you have saved me £60

as folk are reading this, it seems, i thought id update it with the new law

the '' freedom act as well as banning clamping has set up the legal principle that the RK s responsible for any lawful damages claimed in court by the PPC. This means that the prove who was driving element of the case is no longer playable. However all the other elements of challenged to a PCC ticket are available which mean the amounts commonly claimed aren't a lawful representation of the loss they incurred and therefore, they are still unenforceable in court

nb its also oth noting that there is an appeal process now in place ,which is free to you and the decision of which isnt binding on you and will have cost he PPC company 30 quid by that stage, to add to the money they haven't received from you, could work out expensive for them if lots of appeal are made

My partner lives in an apartment block which is private land, there is a designated car park for people that live there and that is the only way you can obtain a permit. Being a visitor, I don't have a permit and all of the surrounding car parks do not allow you to stay overnight and there is no public transport that goes anywhere near. Therefore I have no other choice than to park in a 'permit holders only' area.

So far I have received 9 PARKING CHARGE NOTICE's, and the letters to follow each of them up. They are demanding £140 for each separate occasion, which is absolutely ridiculous even though I am well aware I am in the wrong for parking where I shouldn't in the first place.

My question is, if it was just one occasion they probably wouldn't take it as far as court seeing as it wouldn't be worth it for them as it would cost more than what they would be taking me to court to claim. But seeing as there have been 9 instances, that adds up to over £1000 .. Would it then be worth it for them to take me to court? Or would they have to be looked at as separate cases in which they would have to take me to court 9 times for the 9 separate occasions?

I have ignored all letters so far, but in starting to think I wouldn't have much of a case if they decided to take it to court.

Perhaps you might consider not parking there any more?
Its probably best to get in touch with a solicitor who specialises in parking issues. As its civil most officers, including me dont have a huge amount of experience.
Actually taking someone to a civil court is not that hard. Its the getting anything out of it thats the hard part

I've stopped parking there whilst I figure out a more permanent solution, that's if there is one. I wouldn't have risked parking there in the first place if there was an alternative option. They're bound to have CCTV, therefore it would most likely be impossible for me to say I wasn't the driver at the time.

I will look into a solicitor that specialises in parking issues, thank you.

My partner lives in an apartment block which is private land, there is a designated car park for people that live there and that is the only way you can obtain a permit. Being a visitor, I don't have a permit and all of the surrounding car parks do not allow you to stay overnight and there is no public transport that goes anywhere near. Therefore I have no other choice than to park in a 'permit holders only' area.

So far I have received 9 PARKING CHARGE NOTICE's, and the letters to follow each of them up. They are demanding £140 for each separate occasion, which is absolutely ridiculous even though I am well aware I am in the wrong for parking where I shouldn't in the first place.

My question is, if it was just one occasion they probably wouldn't take it as far as court seeing as it wouldn't be worth it for them as it would cost more than what they would be taking me to court to claim. But seeing as there have been 9 instances, that adds up to over £1000 .. Would it then be worth it for them to take me to court? Or would they have to be looked at as separate cases in which they would have to take me to court 9 times for the 9 separate occasions?

I have ignored all letters so far, but in starting to think I wouldn't have much of a case if they decided to take it to court.

Any help would be appreciated,Thankyou.

have you read the rest of the thread ? it wouldn't be worth taking you to court coz they wouldnt win, nor can they now do what they used to be fond of doing, which was clamping you, till you paid up, you can right off all tickets before the 1st of october completely, and put a formal appeal in for any after that, which will cost them 30 quid each and then see who gets bored first

Hi I wonder if anyone can give me some guidance - I have just got back to my car to find a parking charge notice from a private parking company operating on behalf of the Iceland store. The shop was closed so I thought it would be ok to park there (silly me!) Anyway, they want £95 from me or will reduce to £47 if I pay within 14 days. I feel this is very unfair the local Council parking fines are only £50 reduced to £25 for early payment. I have noticed that the date is not comple ie the issuer has put the date as 4/11 but not put a year in although there is the box with year written at the side of it but this has been left empty. Does this make the Notice unenforceable? If so, do I appeal or just ignore it. Any help will be much appreciated.

Hi I wonder if anyone can give me some guidance - I have just got back to my car to find a parking charge notice from a private parking company operating on behalf of the Iceland store. The shop was closed so I thought it would be ok to park there (silly me!) Anyway, they want £95 from me or will reduce to £47 if I pay within 14 days. I feel this is very unfair the local Council parking fines are only £50 reduced to £25 for early payment. I have noticed that the date is not comple ie the issuer has put the date as 4/11 but not put a year in although there is the box with year written at the side of it but this has been left empty. Does this make the Notice unenforceable? If so, do I appeal or just ignore it. Any help will be much appreciated.

I've stopped parking there whilst I figure out a more permanent solution, that's if there is one. I wouldn't have risked parking there in the first place if there was an alternative option. They're bound to have CCTV, therefore it would most likely be impossible for me to say I wasn't the driver at the time.

I will look into a solicitor that specialises in parking issues, thank you.

Hi I wonder if anyone can give me some guidance - I have just got back to my car to find a parking charge notice from a private parking company operating on behalf of the Iceland store. The shop was closed so I thought it would be ok to park there (silly me!) Anyway, they want £95 from me or will reduce to £47 if I pay within 14 days. I feel this is very unfair the local Council parking fines are only £50 reduced to £25 for early payment. I have noticed that the date is not comple ie the issuer has put the date as 4/11 but not put a year in although there is the box with year written at the side of it but this has been left empty. Does this make the Notice unenforceable? If so, do I appeal or just ignore it. Any help will be much appreciated.

Hi Both,I'm neither a lawyer, Police Officer, or Traffic Warden, but:

This whole "taking you to court thing":They would be suing for damages: ie they're saying that you stopped them from using that parking space for X hours, and therefore they've lost Y amount of money because of it.Now, if the store's closed, I find it hard to believe that they'd convince a judge that you'd somehow lost them £95 by parking there, and if it's a free car park anyway (in the case of the flats), then how can you have lost them any money?

This whole "Parking Charge Notice" thing: legally, it's just a letter saying "you parked on my land, and I didn't want you to; please will you pay me £X by way of compensation".It's the legal equivilent of me asking if you'll buy me another drink because you've spilt mine all over me.Of course, in the drink example, it'd be a bit rude of you not to - but you're not breaking any law if you say "No, sorry - your glass was pretty much empty, mate..." and walk off....

Personally, I'd ignore the PCN - they'll never take you to court, (because/and) if they did, they'd never win (or certainly not for £95?!)(But please read the bit at the top where I say I'm not a lawyer or a Policeman...)

anyone giving the advice to ignore these while that was very true until recently it isn't necessarily the best advice now as the government passed legislation which makes the owner responsible for payment of these not the old way whereby the driver was responsible and it was contract law which could be ignored unless the driver was known.

Basically there are only 3 scenarios you need to be aware of when it comes to parking.

1) You park where there are parking restrictions (eg double yellow lines, or on street parking meters) and the local council put a ticket on your car. If that's the case then you will get a PCN (Penalty Charge Notice), if where you parked is subject to the correct signage (or correctly painted DYL's) and the relevent TRO (Traffic Regulation Order) is all correct then you have little chance of appeal, so my advice is to pay up

2) You park in a railway car park, this is a grey area, particularly so if it's a private parking company that is contrcated to do the enforcement. Most (but not all) railway car parks come under a railway byelaw which gives them the power to issue a fine, so my advice would be to pay up

3) You park on private land, in most cases this is a shopping centre or retail outlet and you get a PCN, except this time it's a Parking Charge Notice (but they shorten that to PCN so it confuses some people into thinking it's a Penalty Charge Notice). A Parking Charge Notice is basically a speculative invoice. They would like to make you believe that you have entered into a contract to park there and by parking you have shown that you consent to the conditions, but a breach of contract has specific remedies and NOT ONE OF THEM is a punitive penalty (eg a sum of money that you have to pay). The defining case for this dates back to the early 1900's (It's known as The Dunlop Case, Google it if you want the specifics) and that principle still holds true today, that you cannot apply a punitive damage. So in the case of a shopping centre or retail car park where it is free to park, then by overstaying the stated time, or by parking over a painted white line or whatever infringement they claim it makes no odds, they have lost £0 by you doing that so they can only claim £0 back from you. That's an END OF.

Now they will send you ever more threatening letters and offer to reduce the amount or threaten to add more costs but these are hollow threats, they can't enforce it and no court will either. The recent change in legislation making the RK responsible doesn't affect this, it only affected the 'Well take it up with the driver defence', but that makes no odds.

Having said that, if you were in a private car park and you overstayed what you had paid for (eg you paid £1 to park there for 2 hours and you were there 2 hours and xx minutes then you do owe them some money, but you only owe them the revenue they have actually lost, ie whatever the charge would have been to park there for the time you parked there less what you have already paid them. Anything else is punitive and by now you should know that they can't apply punitive damages.

Private parking companies play the numbers game, they issue lots of Parking Charge Notices and rely on more people paying them than not paying them. Whilst most of them invite you to appeal, they do that because they want a response, they want a name and an address to persue more aggresively, they will never allow an appeal (because that defeats their business model).

In most cases what happens is the following

1) You get an initial letter from them stating you owe £XX but they will accept £YY if you pay within 14 days

2) Assuming you don't pay (unless you are paying what the cost of the parking actually was in the car park you used) then you will get between 3 and 5 more letters, each more threatening and possibly for an additional amount

3) You will then get a final chance to pay at the original amount (ie the £XX or the £YY in their first letter)

4) Finally you get 2 or 3 letters from a tame solicitor, that's one who probably works for them and does nothing else but deal with these cases. They are known as tame solicitors because they are toothless and can't do anything other than scare you into paying, they are certainly not going to take you to court

The law has changed. The government banned wheel clamping and a trade off was to make private parking notices legally enforcable. All they did was pass legislation to say the OWNER not the driver is responsible for any fees. As such they are now enforcable although we have not tested this in the courts

Please stop advising people to ignore them. That was true until recently but is bad advice now and could leave people with a massive bill

The law has changed. The government banned wheel clamping and a trade off was to make private parking notices legally enforcable. All they did was pass legislation to say the OWNER not the driver is responsible for any fees. As such they are now enforcable although we have not tested this in the courts

Please stop advising people to ignore them. That was true until recently but is bad advice now and could leave people with a massive bill

Yes the law did change, but only to the extent that it made the registered keeper responsible, what HAS NOT changed is that these Parking Charge Notices are still NOT enforceable. Whilst it is true that you can no longer hide behind the defence of 'I wasn't driving and I don't have to tell you who was' you can still safely ignore them (unless there was actually a charge to park there and you haven't paid anything/enough (in which case you are liable for the cost of the parking AND NOTHING ELSE)).

The private parking companies would like you to believe otherwise, but it is simply not the case, if you are in any doubt then have a look at sites such as pepipoo or CAG, and as for 'massive charges' again that's another scaremongering tactic.